“Lucideus has created a niche in the market with its dual approach of providing manual and automated cyber security,” says an expert.

“Lucideus has created a niche in the market with its dual approach of providing manual and automated cyber security,” says an expert.

It was during the run-up to his board exams that Saket Modi first discovered a latent skill for hacking into secure computer systems. Convinced he would not clear the chemistry test conducted by his school, he hacked into his school computer and stole the question paper.

But a guilty conscience forced him to confess to his teacher who allowed him to still take the exam. The episode would be a turning point for the teenager who realised he could use his skills to protect not harm.

Twenty two-year-old Modi now runs his own cyber security company, Lucideus Tech, that has a marquee client list that includes the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Criminal Investigation Department, Reserve Bank of India, IBM and various central and state investigative and intelligence agencies.

“He conducted few sessions for our boys and we found him useful in terms of how to protect the infrastructure from hacking,” said Vineet Goyal, special inspector general, CID.

“Cyber security is a big issue and there is need for support from people like him,” says Goyal who deals with cybercrimes like banking frauds, hacking of social media networks and communication over the internet.

Besides training, Lucideus has developed a product that exposes all the vulnerabilities and virtually bypasses every firewall or protection that a developer has put up to make his website secure.

“I was taken aback when this young kid managed to find gaps in our website, through which people could have broken into,” says Vishal Chowdhary, managing director of the Indian operations of Global Credit Solutions.

The Australian firm found that despite internal firewalls it was still vulnerable to cyber-attacks, as it works in areas like debt collection, investigations in intellectual property rights, brand protection, anti-counterfeit and fraud.

Lucideus has also developed a monitoring tool, an app that infiltrates into smartphones to copy or wipe away data like call logs, messages, applications and location without the person knowing about it.

Experts say while these are interesting services that work on top of established security products, it will take time for the young company to develop high-end products that takes millions of dollars of investment and years of research and development.

“Lucideus has created a niche in the market with its dual approach of providing manual and automated cyber security,” says an expert who heads cyber fraud at one of the biggest US banks, requesting anonymity.

“Automated approach does not help anymore as malware is getting more sophisticated and keeps mutating.” Before launching the company, Modi, an engineering student at LNM Institute of Information Technology in Jaipur, conducted workshops on ethical hacking at various IITs and engineering colleges.

These sessions provided seed capital to launch Lucideus last January. The company has its own information technology laboratory which makes customised security solutions.

Depending on the problem, it charges between Rs 1 lakh-Rs 50 lakh for its services. The employees are mainly security experts in the age group of 18-25 years. They are hired by organisations to penetrate networks and computer systems, using the same methods as hackers, for the purpose of finding and fixing computer security vulnerabilities and cyber-attacks.

“For us it is critical to see the software we make can’t be hacked,” says Vaibhav Gadodia, VP, Technology, at California-based Nagarro, which makes high-end software for global banks and aviation companies.

Modi, who also plays piano in a music band, believes security is all about reverse engineering. There is a huge need for security experts in the country and that is the big gap Lucideus is trying to fill.

“Considering the cyber infrastructure in the country, we are sitting on a time bomb waiting to explode,” he says. “The only difference is that the impact of this is million times more than a physical bomb.”